Modernizing Grid Investments | Distributie Oltenia
DEO’s digitalization efforts over the past decade brought significant progress through systems like GIS, SAP, and mobile workforce management. However, fragmented data across platforms made it difficult to manage aging infrastructure and meet growing regulatory demands. To overcome these challenges, DEO partnered with IPS with the goal to find an investment planning solution that will centralize asset data, streamline investment planning, and enable data-driven decision-making to make the network sustainable in the long term. Besides Asset Investment Planning, the implementation project also included IPS Asset Performance Management and Workforce Management solutions.
About Distributie Oltenia
Distributie Oltenia (hereinafter DEO) became the legal successor of Electrica Oltenia as of 15 March 2007. After the unbundling process mandated by European legal requirements, DEO continues to operate exclusively in the field of electricity distribution, maintaining ownership of the essential assets for the development of the business.
DEO is powering over 1,5 million customers across Oltenia’s 7 counties: Dolj, Arges, Olt, Gorj, Valcea, Mehedinti and Teleorman, and covering:
- 5,399 km HV Lines
- 21,773 km MV Lines
- 28,905 km LV Lines
- 144 Primary Stations
- 10,764 Transformer Posts
How did it all start?
Over the past decade, DEO has undergone several digitalization initiatives. These initiatives included the implementation of GIS, the development of new modules within the SAP system, and the adoption of a mobile workforce management solution (MWM). As a result, DEO accumulated a large volume of asset data, but this data remained decentralized and lacked correlation across the different systems.
With an aging distribution network and limited resources to replace all outdated infrastructure at once, DEO faced significant challenges in efficiently allocating maintenance resources. Additionally, DEO was under increased pressure from regulatory authorities to comply with evolving EU directives and regulations.
Given these challenges, DEO recognized the need for a comprehensive solution that would enable them to plan and allocate their resources more efficiently. After conducting thorough market research, DEO chose to partner with IPS, marking the beginning of a collaborative journey.
The project started in March 2022 and was successfully completed in November 2023. During this time, we partnered with ADREM Engineering S.R.L., who played an important role in providing local support and contributing to specific components of the implementation.
Challenges Faced
We were required to create a simultaneous interface with three external systems (GIS, SAP, and MWM). An interface with the GIS system for managing high, medium, and low-voltage equipment needed to be established. The key difficulty stemmed from working with two distinct file formats: one for the high-voltage equipment in CSV format, and the other for Schneider’s completely unstructured CIM format in XML. Additionally, tracking changes in the GIS system posed another significant challenge, as the system cannot export delta differentials.
To address these issues, we decided to implement our solution, Intelligent Data Lake (IPS®IDL), as the interface concept. We used a meta-model strategy to compare previous and most recent data versions, enabling efficient identification and extraction of the change set.
About the Asset Investment Planning Solution
We implemented software for Asset Investment Planning (IPS®AIP) that enables users to create investments based on condition or external network demand analysis, define and analyze different options, group investments into an asset plan, and perform simulations on various investment plan versions and KPIs.
The AIP module streamlines the process of creating, approving, and managing investments throughout their lifecycle, providing a centralized overview to capture all investments. The module includes analytics and simulation tools to help select the optimal investment scenario, which can later be approved and become part of the Asset Investment Plan.
Users can set investment-specific parameters such as asset health, grid (network) models, project costs, and environmental and social factors. After analysis, users can review various pre-configured reports in the system.
Conclusion
DEO is one of many organizations using IPS to drive meaningful improvements across their asset management processes. The successful implementation of Asset Investment Planning has enabled DEO to centralize asset data, improve investment planning, and better meet regulatory demands. Despite complex integration challenges, we delivered a reliable and effective solution on time and without compromising performance.
